Wednesday, 4 May 2016

To experience Washington's ugly underbelly, ride the metro

WASHINGTON (AFP) - 
Be it election time or not, Americans love to groan about Washington. They dismiss it as mired in nothing-works, nothing-gets-done gridlock. But the dysfunction runs deeper. Literally.
To taste another kind of inertia in the seat of world power, ride the city's awful, bumbling subway.
Murphy's law rules on the busiest US metro system after New York's: anything that can go wrong does go wrong on a once-admired but now-decaying network that carries more than 700,000 people a day.
Its main woes? Money, management and a design foible that makes for easy mayhem.
Trains, tracks, switches, brand new escalators -- you name it -- are always breaking down. Simple daily commutes morph into draining odysseys in a work-obsessed town where everybody's in a hurry.
Lights in cars go out, suddenly at times. Trains seem to be running fine, then abruptly stop, a problem is reported, and exhale their load of irate travelers. At rush hour on a bad day, station platforms can turn into seas of stranded people.
After a recent spate of fire and smoke incidents in tunnels, many users wonder if the system, now 40 years old, is even safe anymore.
"Every morning that I know I am going to be riding the train, I tell my wife which stations I will be going through so she will know, just in case something happens," Tom Broadman, a 49-year-old IT worker, said while riding a noisy, screeching Red Line train headed downtown.
"It's that bad. It's a nightmare."
"I actually changed jobs just to avoid having to use the metro," adds John Cunningham, a 28-year-old bank employee. "It's pathetic."
Bottom line: many Washingtonians find it appalling that a capital city from which vast military and diplomatic power are projected around the world cannot move trains reliably and safely from Point A to Point B.
On March 16, with just hours' notice, the entire system shut down for an unprecedented 29 hours so crews could inspect electrical cables that have sparked several blazes.
- Major flaws -
Things were not always this ugly. Metrorail, as the subway system is called, opened in March 1976 to much fanfare.
Its quiet, gleaming trains and high, arched station ceilings stood as a futuristic symbol of city and national pride in the year America celebrated its bicentennial.
"I remember riding the Metro for the first time and it was this shiny, new ? it's like 'the Jetsons'. Like, 'Oh my God, this is the future,'" said Jack Evans, chairman of the board of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs Metrorail and the city's buses, recalling the summer of 1976 and the Hanna-Barbera science-fiction cartoon series.
But the system was created with two chinks that have proven costly as the subway expanded to keep pace with the metropolitan area's population growth, and money for repairs and upkeep became increasingly scarce.
First, while other subway systems in America were built with three or four tracks, Washington's has just two. This was done to save money.
That means that when a train breaks down or track work needs to be done, trains moving in opposite directions have to take turns sharing the same track and ensuing travel delays can be very long -- a major gripe for riders.
- Scrounging for money -
Then there is money, and geography. Metrorail is unique in that it spans three jurisdictions -- Washington, and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, home to hundreds of thousands of people who work in the nation's capital.
Representatives of all three sit on the WMATA board, as do people from the federal government. This four-headed structure complicates decision-making and has been criticized as diluting accountability for the sad state of Metrorail.
Most of the board's 16 members have no hands-on experience with mass transit; they are political appointees.
What is more, Metrorail lacks so-called "dedicated funding" for its $1.8 billion yearly operating budget: a tax or fee whose revenue goes only to keep the trains up and running.
Instead, Evans said, "Every year I have to go, Metro has to go, to three different jurisdictions to get money."
Plus, Metro needs billions of dollars in coming years to pay for improvement projects like new cars -- most of those in use now are the original ones from 1976 -- and a new tunnel under the Potomac River, Evans said.
"They are not things that it would be nice if we could do them. They are essential things, things you must do, and I don't have the money," Evans said.
He said the system is still mechanically safe but no longer a reliable way to get someplace on time.
Things will probably get worse before they get better, Evans added.
Paul Wiedefeld, who used to run the Baltimore-Washington international airport, took over as Metrorail's new general manager in November, assuming what was probably the least wanted job in the city at a really tense time.
The system suffered a surge in fire and smoke incidents last year; one woman died and scores were injured when smoke engulfed a downtown train in January 2015. A federal safety board report issued Tuesday blamed bad management and maintenance.
Wiedefeld has promised to present a long-term maintenance plan soon. And some have defended him for putting safety first and shutting down that day, knowing it would raise hell, which it did.
But Metro has few fans of late. After the March 16 closure, The Washington Post -- unofficial arbiter and depository of things Washingtonian -- called it a "national embarrassment, an amateur operation."
Days later, a Twitter user with the handle @ironmanjt wrote: "Passenger in front of me just crossed herself boarding #WMATA train and is now saying Hail Mary."
by Daniel Woolls
© 2016 AFP

China cuts yuan fix in biggest move since devaluation

SHANGHAI (AFP) - 
China's central bank on Wednesday fixed the yuan currency nearly 0.60 percent weaker against the US dollar, according to the national foreign exchange market, the biggest downward move since devaluing the unit in August last year.
The People's Bank of China set the value of the yuan -- also known at the renminbi (RMB) -- at 6.4943 to $1.0, weakening 0.59 percent from the fix of 6.4565 the previous day, according to data from the Foreign Exchange Trade System.
China only allows the yuan to rise or fall two percent on either side of the daily fix, one of the ways it maintains control over the currency.
Analysts said the weaker fix was in line with strength in the US dollar overnight, as financial authorities seek to make trading more market oriented.
The dollar rose against most of its peers Tuesday as global growth worries swept equity markets and pushed oil prices lower, boosting demand for the safe-haven US currency.
"To maintain a stable currency market, the RMB weakened accordingly," Liu Xuezhi, an analyst at the Bank of Communications, told AFP.
Wednesday's cut came after China on Friday raised the yuan-dollar exchange rate by 0.56 percent from the previous day, the biggest increase in almost 11 years.
The world's second-largest economy rattled global investors with a surprise devaluation last August, when it guided the normally stable yuan down nearly five percent over a week.
At mid-morning on Wednesday, the yuan was quoted at 6.4996 to the dollar on the onshore market, weakening from Tuesday's close of 6.4743, according to the Foreign Exchange Trade System.
© 2016 AFP

EU to give Turkey visa-free travel to save migrant deal

BRUSSELS (AFP) - 
The European Commission will on Wednesday give conditional backing to visa-free travel for more than 80 million Turks as the EU tries to save a controversial deal with Ankara to solve the migrant crisis.
Brussels is also set to announce further measures to tackle the biggest influx of migrants since World War II, with an extension of border controls in the passport-free Schengen zone and an overhaul of its asylum rules.
Turkey has threatened to tear up the March agreement to take back migrants who cross the Aegean Sea to Greece if the EU fails to keep its promise to allow Turkish citizens to travel without visas to the Schengen area by next month.
Many EU states still have concerns about the legality of the deal and the human rights situation in Turkey, and the plan for 90-day visas must be cleared by all 28 nations in the bloc and the European Parliament.
The Commission is expected to find that Turkey has achieved only 64 of the 72 benchmarks needed for visa-free travel, which range from biometric passports to respect for human rights, European sources told AFP.
This means that it will back the visa arrangement if Ankara completes the so-called visa liberalisation roadmap by the end of June, the sources said.
- Schengen border controls -
The Turkish deal is the cornerstone of the EU's plan to curb a crisis that has seen 1.25 million Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and other migrants enter since 2015, though the numbers of arrivals have dropped since March.
Turkey meanwhile has been rushing through laws in recent days to meet the EU's requirements, although that effort has occasionally stalled because of a series of mass brawls in parliament.
The new laws include making a reciprocal visa agreement for EU nationals, including those of Cyprus, with which Turkey has long-standing tensions over its occupation of the north of the Mediterranean island.
"Yesterday, a government decree has been adopted by the Turkish government allowing the access to Turkish territory without visa for citizens of all 28 member states, I repeat all 28," Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.
On Wednesday the EU will also allow countries to extend border controls in the Schengen area as a result of the migrant crisis and recent terror attacks.
Germany, France, Austria, Denmark and Sweden requested the extension, saying the border situation remains "extremely volatile".
Since 2015 several countries in the 26-nation Schengen zone have reintroduced border controls due to the migrant crisis -- effectively suspending its principle of border-free travel.
European sources said the Commission was to approve the measure in line with its so-called "roadmap" for the restoration of the normal functioning of Schengen "by the end of the year".
EU rules say countries can reintroduce border controls for up to two years, in periods of up to six months at a time, in exceptional circumstances.
- Dublin rules -
Also Wednesday, the EU is expected to unveil an overhaul of its asylum rules to more fairly share responsibility for migrants and refugees arriving in Europe.
The so-called Dublin rules currently in force have been criticised as obsolete and unfair to countries like Greece, where most of the migrants entered the bloc last year.
Under those rules, migrants seeking asylum must lodge their application in the country where they first arrived, and should be returned there if they try to move elsewhere in the bloc.
The Commission is expected to propose a special mechanism whereby refugees and migrants can be relocated to other countries if a crisis is declared -- for example in Greece.
The Financial Times reported that countries that do not take their share could be fined 250,000 euros per person that they refuse to accept.
But the EU is expected to shun a complete overhaul of the Dublin rules.
by Danny Kemp
© 2016 AFP

Floods following drought worsen Ethiopian hunger

DERALA (ETHIOPIA) (AFP) - 
Stuck on a track in eastern Ethiopia, trucks carrying food for the starving are forced to turn back.
After one of the worst droughts for decades, the rains have finally arrived, but now only add to the complication of the delivery of food aid.
Flash floods have effectively transformed dry dirt tracks into impassable quagmires, adding to the woes of the victims in remote areas, some of whom have received no help for weeks.
A year of drought has pushed 10.2 million Ethiopians into dire conditions needing food aid to survive, according to the United Nations.
Here in Sitti province, in the far east of the Horn of African nation, times were tough even before the drought. The region is classified as "emergency", according to UN monitors, one step short of famine.
In the small village of Derela, cattle herders come from far for aid. Dozens of carcasses of goats and cattle testify to the magnitude of the drought.
"All my animals died," said Ali Boor, installed in a makeshift camp with his wife and their seven children. From his 200 cows, only six survived.
"Without any help, there was no hope," he said. "We heard that here we could have food and water."
Floods and failed rains caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon have sparked a dramatic rise in the number of people going hungry in large parts of Africa, with southern Ethiopia an area of especial concern.
- Food and funding gaps -
Food insecurity is a sensitive issue in Ethiopia, which enjoys near-double-digit economic growth, but which has struggled to change its image following the famine of 1984-85 which followed an extreme drought.
"A drought like this is unheard of," added Mohamed Aden, the leader of the community, a few huts away. In two years, three consecutive seasons of rains were abnormally low, a situation attributed to El Nino.
"At the beginning, we sold the livestock to buy food. Without help, we would have only the skin of animals to eat," said Aden.
Children receive a bowl of porridge a day at school, and their families get wheat rations distributed by the UN, often irregularly.
Despite these efforts, malnutrition has reached grim levels: 350,000 children under five years were treated for severe malnutrition in Ethiopia in 2015, a figure expected to reach 450,000 in 2016, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF.
In Malkashek, amidst a vast expanse of desert, the mobile clinic set up by Save the Children is always busy.
Aid worker Abd Rahman Adan measures the children to identify the most malnourished. Last month, 136 cases of severe malnutrition were registered in this district alone.
"Since the beginning of the drought, we have seen many more cases of malnutrition," said Adan, who hands out packets of super-sweet and specially fortified peanut paste.
"Some children regain a normal weight, but others must be sent to a stabilisation centre," he added.
- 'Last hope' -
Aisha Nour, the mother of a malnourished two-year-old girl leaves with a few packs of food supplements and bags of wheat loaded onto a donkey. "We eat pancakes from sorghum and wheat, that's all, no milk or oil," she said.
The rains are making things worse.
"Roads are turning into raging rivers and our trucks carrying food assistance are unable to reach many communities," warned the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) aid agency.
Weakened without water and food, the lashing cold rains are now killing the livestock that provides for many people their last lifeline.
"The rain has led to livestock deaths that in their weakened state are more susceptible to illnesses. For many this was the last hope they had," said Mohamed Hassan, NRC operations chief in the eastern Jigjiga district.
Faced with the food crisis, the Ethiopian government has allocated $766 million in emergency aid. Donor countries have also promised aid, but there is still a worrying $600 million shortfall from the $1.4 billion needed.
"The Middle East and the migrant crisis has diverted attention from our partners," said Minister for Food Security Mitiku Kassa.
Aid agencies are worried too.
"Last year, many farmers had little or no harvest," said Save the Children's chief in Ethiopia, John Graham.
"There are millions of people who will be increasingly hungry until the next harvest, September at the earliest."
by Karim Lebhour
© 2016 AFP

Obama faces looming trade row with China

WASHINGTON (AFP) - 
US President Barack Obama is facing a fresh trade row with Beijing that could inflame the 2016 election race and complicate his farewell visit to China in September.
Beijing is pressing Obama's administration to treat China like a "market economy," a move that would spell lower tariffs on controversial Chinese exports like steel.
The issue lit up the 2016 campaign trail Monday, when Obama's Democratic heir apparent Hillary Clinton appeared to challenge the White House to deny China's demand.
"I have made this clear, I'm going to say it again and I hope the press writes it so people in the administration see it, I am dead set against making China a market economy," Clinton told steel workers in Kentucky.
"They don't follow the rules and they don't play by the rules," she said, echoing longstanding allegations that China hurts US jobs and businesses by dumping goods on the market below cost.
The Chinese government denies such actions and has fought back against waves of US and European retaliatory tariffs.
Now Beijing is opening a new front, challenging the unfavorable and arcane way those tariffs are calculated for non-market economies suspected of dumping goods.
China argues its 2001 deal to join the World Trade Organization dictates that from December 11 the United States must change.
"We anticipate all WTO members to fulfill their treaty obligations on time, not to distort or delay its implementation," Zhu Haiquan, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told AFP.
- Rock and a hard place -
Few trade partners would argue China is a fully fledged market economy, but even fewer want to pick a fight with the world's second largest economy.
Smaller nations like New Zealand and Singapore have already granted China market economy status ahead of the December crunch point.
The Obama administration insists its determination will be quasi-judicial, based on established Commerce Department criteria.
"Nothing in China's protocol of accession requires that WTO members automatically grant China market economy status later this year," a Commerce official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The official said that instead, China would have to "request a review of status" in the context of a specific dispute.
That stance is unlikely to wash with Beijing.
"If that's how it comes out, then I expect China to bring a case to the WTO arguing that it is being denied what it bargained for," said Gary Clyde Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
"In China, this is a big issue because it has a lot of atmospherics to it."
That risks making Obama's September trip to Hangzhou for a G20 meeting -- likely his last trip to China and one of his last meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping -- an uncomfortable one.
And even if Obama avoids a public spat, he faces the prospect of presiding over a China trade dispute during his final months in office.
"They have a pattern of retaliating, so they will figure out some combination of industries where they can shift shipments from US sources to friendly sources," said Hufbauer, predicting Chinese sanctions.
Any retaliatory measures would only be a blemish on trade worth trillions, but they could be a significant irritant nonetheless.
It would be a bitter irony for Obama, again undermining a presidency long effort to improve relations with China and "pivot" US foreign policy away from the Middle East and toward Asia.
And for Obama the issue is made more difficult by a 2016 election that has been a festival of protectionist rhetoric from both the left and the right.
Clinton's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal has already called into question the future of a landmark Obama achievement, designed to serve a counterbalance to China's regional economic clout.
Meanwhile, candidates like Republican frontrunner Donald Trump routinely point to the roughly $368 billion trade deficit with China as evidence the United States is being taken for a ride.
Trump has ditched his party's free trade mantra, provocatively stating "we can't continue to allow China to rape our country."
Figures like Erin Ennis, senior vice president of the US-China Business Council say the US must meet its WTO commitments to China, but common ground on anti-dumping measures can still be found.
But both Trump and Clinton are likely to keep up the pressure for a tough line as they battle for voters across America's hard-hit rust belt in the general election.
by Andrew Beatty
© 2016 AFP

Chanel glitz comes to Havana, Cubans watch from afar

HAVANA (AFP) - 
French fashion house Chanel staged its first Latin American catwalk show in newly trendy Havana Tuesday, but ordinary Cubans were left watching the glitz from afar.
International celebrities and Cuban bigwigs graced the red carpet as Karl Lagerfeld showed his latest collection, which the German designer infused with the styles and colors of the Caribbean island.
Cubans without an invitation to the exclusive event meanwhile packed the balconies of old Havana or lined the police cordon outside, straining to catch a glimpse of the beauties in the distance.
"What a sight. But I would have liked to be closer to the models," said 52-year-old Mireya Correoso, who told AFP she had never seen so much luxury and showbiz in one place.
It was the latest in a stream of international cultural events on the communist island as it opens up its diplomatic and commercial relations.
"The world is finally opening up to Cuba. Everyone wants to come taste the forbidden fruit. Everyone wants to discover it, savor it, enjoy it, explore it," said Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro and a prominent gay-rights activist on the island.
Other high-profile attendees included Hollywood stars Vin Diesel, Tilda Swinton and Geraldine Chaplin.
Diesel is in town shooting the latest "Fast and Furious" action movie.
Among the parade of visiting celebrities and top officials, the Rolling Stones also played a concert here last month after a visit by US President Barack Obama.
Obama and Castro's December 2014 announcement of a rapprochement between their two countries has kindled new interest in Cuba, long isolated by a US embargo and its status as one of the last bastions of communism.
In announcing the show, Chanel said that "the cultural richness and the opening up of Cuba to the world have turned it into a source of inspiration."
The show took place on an open-air catwalk on the Paseo del Prado, a long seaside boulevard in a scruffy neighborhood that got a deep makeover for the occasion.
The opulence inside the tightly guarded venue stood in stark contrast with the poverty of the ordinary Cubans dressed in shorts and T-shirts peering in.
The half-hour show ended with a brief appearance by Lagerfeld, dressed in his trademark gloves and a sequin jacket, who received a burst of applause and conga drums.
- 'Too nostalgic' -
The show was not entirely to local designer Idania del Rio's liking, however.
"It was very interesting and maybe too nostalgic. A lot of Cuban cigars, colors and hats from another era. It represented a Cuba that doesn't interest me right now, because today's Cuba is another, more contemporary Cuba," said the 33-year-old entrepreneur.
For years, the communist principles that ruled in Cuba after revolutionary Fidel Castro won power in 1959 insisted on equality, even in clothing.
Foreign brands were not available until the 1990s, when the market started to open up gradually.
Cuba entered a crisis after the Soviet Union, which had financially supported its communist government, fell in 1991.
Cubans had to wear imported second-hand clothes from state-run stores.
Authorities called it "recycled clothing" but ordinary Cubans referred to their trips to the official shops as "rag-shopping."
With its cabarets and casinos frequented by US film stars and gangsters, pre-revolutionary Cuba had a thriving fashion scene.
The end of the Soviet era encouraged a rebirth.
The future of fashion will depend on if and when US lawmakers end the 54-year-old embargo -- still in place despite the diplomatic thaw.
"When we become a normal country, without the embargo, we will be leaders of fashion," said Cuba's best-known living designer, Raul Castillo.
by Hector Velasco
© 2016 AFP

Drama about drugs kingpin 'El Chapo' in development: media

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - 
The life of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is to be turned into a drama series by the showrunner of Netflix hit drama "Narcos," reports said.
"#Cartel," which is being developed by cable channel History, will chart the emergence of the drug gangs who use social media to promote their brand, Variety magazine said on Tuesday.
"The true story of El Chapo, fraught with murder, drugs, corruption and celebrity, has been and continues to be one of the most disturbing and fascinating of the past decade," History chief Jana Bennett told the entertainment weekly.
It is familiar ground for Chris Brancato, co-creator of the "Narcos," a crime thriller series on Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
"#Cartel" will be a "metaphor for the lives we present on the Internet... and the risks of not-so-humble-bragging on social media," he said.
Guzman was captured in January after months on the run in a colorful episode involving a Mexican soap opera actress and US film star Sean Penn, who met with the drug boss in hiding.
Guzman had escaped through a hole in his jail cell's shower in July last year, in a drama that embarrassed the government.
He faces two extradition demands by courts in California and Texas, for homicide and drug trafficking, in a process expected to take at least a year.
© 2016 AFP